


Well Lived

by Roselightfairy



Series: Finding a Voice [11]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Anticipation of Grief, Character Death, Cuddling, Dwarf Culture & Customs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship Conflicts, Grief/Mourning, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-18 04:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21721504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy
Summary: Legolas is called to Erebor to help Gimli through the death of his father. But even as he does all he can to support his husband in his grief, he cannot help dwelling on the difference between mortal and immortal death - and the loss that awaits him in the years to come.
Relationships: Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf
Series: Finding a Voice [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/939402
Comments: 20
Kudos: 90





	Well Lived

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story I started over a year ago and have gotten stuck on finishing many, many times. This is in part because the story contains references to past OC conflict that I haven't really built up in any other stories. I have no good explanation for it except that... it happened in my head and now I can't make it not happen. So I'm sorry about that, but I hope it makes sense even without the context.
> 
> For the dwarf mourning customs, I was inspired by [this article](https://thedwarrowscholar.com/2012/04/27/death/) by the Dwarrow Scholar, but I used the article more as a jumping-off point and made a lot of it up. I know that the Dwarrow Scholar's research is largely inspired by Jewish traditions, and I hope that my descriptions of any of the customs do not feel appropriative or my changes disrespectful. I'm not Jewish myself, and I tried to walk the line between being inspired by but not claiming unchanged another culture's traditions. If any of this feels over the line, please let me know.
> 
> Huge thanks to [DeHeerKonijn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/pseuds/DeHeerKonijn) for encouragement and for giving this a preliminary read-through.

Legolas made the last leg of his journey on foot.

He had ridden hard all the way from Ithilien, and the horse was tired, even if she was too prideful to admit it to him. And she would not like the path to the mountain, especially not so late in the evening – and besides, Legolas wanted no delays once he arrived there.

So he stabled her in Dale, paid a handsome (and likely too high, but he had never been skilled in haggling, and he had no time to waste) price for her to be looked after, and took the last of the journey at a run.

He made good time, but it was approaching nightfall when he reached the path up to the mountain, and he was glad that he had had practice running in the dark, back when Lasgalen had been truly named Mirkwood. Still, the stones did not speak to him as clearly as did trees and growing things, and only his balance and agility prevented him from skidding a few times on loose pebbles that did not send him warning of their presence.

He had slowly and finally overcome the breathless intimidation that pressed upon him at the first sight of the mountain – but even had he not, he had no time for it this day. Indeed, the wave of emotion that rushed through him at the first shout of the guards was all impatience, untinged by apprehension.

“Halt!”

He halted, reluctantly.

“Who goes there?”

Surely they knew him – even if the dark impaired their vision, his stature and coloring identified him clearly, and what other Lasgalen elf would come thus to the mountain, at this time? But he forced himself to calm. “Legolas of Ithilien,” he answered. “Son of Thranduil of the Woodland Realm, and husband to Gimli, son of” – He hesitated. “Son of Glóin,” he finished in a cracking whisper.

The guards, to his relief, did not question him further. They merely exchanged sad glances among themselves, and then one gave the signal for the gate to be opened.

Legolas had been only few times to the Lonely Mountain, and never alone, but he knew the way to Gimli’s family home well enough. He ran there on light feet, paying little mind to any of the other dwarves around him, glad that he did not have to concern himself now with caring for his horse.

He took the steps up to Gimli’s home two at a time, but hesitated at the door. Gimli might open it anytime he wished, but this was not Legolas’s home. He would not show disrespect to Geira, least of all now.

He knocked, and then listened. Inside it was very quiet, but he could faintly make out the noises of dwarves within. They had surely heard him, so he must merely wait until they opened the door – he would not disturb them further.

Finally, a voice answered, cracked and strained. Gimli’s voice. “It’s open.”

Taking that as invitation, Legolas pushed the door open.

The room was dim, much darker than Legolas remembered it being kept. Three dwarves sat within: Gimli at the very center of the wide couch, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. The rest of the couch was empty, but upon noticing the room’s other occupants, Legolas understood why. In chairs in the corner of the room were Gimli’s old friends Ain and Nali. Some part of Legolas was surprised but relieved to see them here, but the majority of his senses were focused on his husband.

“Gimli,” he said softly. “Love.”

Gimli looked up, his face haggard – but his eyes shone with relief. “Legolas,” he choked, the name like a sob, and lurched to his feet. He stumbled forward, and Legolas crossed the room in two steps and took him in his arms.

Gimli trembled against him, less a solid mountain range than a fault before an earthquake, and his fists snagged in Legolas’s cloak. “You’re here.”

“I came as soon as I received your message,” said Legolas softly. “I am only sorry it was not sooner.”

He wished it had been; the feeling had been building within him for some time that something was wrong, that something was coming. He ought not have waited until he heard exactly what that something was.

“I could not delay for you,” Gimli said. “I had to set out—”

“Hush, love, I understand,” Legolas soothed him, kissing the crown of his head. “I only wished to know if I had come in time.” He hesitated, but it had to be asked. “Is he still—”

Against him, Gimli nodded, then shook his head. “He is,” he said, his voice muffled against Legolas’s shoulder. “But he – it will not be long.”

Legolas nodded, unsure what to say. This situation was entirely unknown to him, but now was not the time to ask after manners and niceties. Gimli needed him here, needed him solid and unwavering, and Legolas would allow himself to give nothing less. He kept his arms tight around Gimli, and remained silent – there to listen, if Gimli wished to speak.

That silence hung around them for some moments, but after a time, Nali cleared his throat from the corner. “We will go, then, now that you have come, Legolas.” Rustlings of cloth and gentle snapping of joints as the two of them rose, and then Nali laid a hand on Gimli’s rounded shoulder. “You know where to find us if you need us,” he said.

“Yes,” Ain agreed quietly.

Gimli mumbled an indistinct farewell into Legolas’s cloak, but they seemed to understand, and made their exit with little fanfare.

“They came,” said Legolas once they had gone, less to express his own surprise than to give Gimli space to speak of it, if he wished to.

“Aye.” Gimli gave a watery laugh. “I suppose I am glad to know they are still my friends, even if they would not be my subjects. Or I should be glad of grief for bringing together old friendships again – ha!”

Legolas stroked his hair but said nothing, knowing it was not his place to speak. Relations between Gimli and his old friends had been distant for some time – they had not found Aglarond to their liking, discontent to be Gimli’s subjects where before they had been his equals. Or perhaps, though none had spoken it aloud, they had not felt comfortable with the changes his long absences had wrought on Gimli. They had given only the first reason, but Legolas (and Gimli, too, he knew) suspected the second as well.

Either way . . . “I am glad, at least, that you have not been left to sorrow alone,” he ventured finally.

“It is true – alone I would have been otherwise,” Gimli confessed. “My father has little family left, and my mother –”

“How fares your mother?” Legolas asked.

Against him, Gimli heaved a great sigh. “You may see for yourself,” he answered. “For it is time I returned to the sickroom, and you had best come with me.”

* * *

Glóin’s sickroom was dim and quiet: only a single candle burned in the corner, casting strange shadows over the walls. Legolas blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness, and made out the figure of Geira sitting silent beside the bed – and the slight form of Glóin beneath the sheets.

He managed to hold back his gasp, but he could not help squeezing Gimli’s hand a bit more tightly, in both sympathy and surprise. Legolas had last seen Glóin the year before, and while he had noticed with concern the increased sag in the dwarf’s skin, the slowness of his step, it had not prepared him for this – this _diminishing_ , the body shrunken to little more than a mound of blankets, the wheezing rattle of his labored breath.

“Gimli?” Glóin asked, his voice weak and hardly recognizable.

“Here, Adad.” Gimli’s own voice was hoarse; Legolas pressed his hand and stepped forward when he did.

Glóin’s eyes blinked, gleaming in the low light of the candle. “And you’ve brought the elf with you. Good, good.” His eyes closed; he fought for breath as if exhausted by the effort of speaking.

“I am here, Glóin.” It had been long since he had been anything but “Legolas” to Gimli’s parents, but he would hardly contradict Glóin now. He bowed. “I am glad to see you.” It was true in spirit, if also a lie.

“As am I.” Glóin struggled under the blankets and extracted one wizened hand. “I would speak to you alone.”

Legolas hesitated; Gimli and Geira exchanged looks. Glóin huffed irritably and waved the hand in a feeble shooing motion. “Out, you two,” he snapped. “I’ve little time left, and I mean to make it count. Leave us.”

Reluctantly, Gimli and Geira began to shuffle out the door, Gimli releasing Legolas’s hand at the last moment possible. Legolas took the seat Geira had vacated, sitting beside Glóin and gazing down at him. “What do you wish of me?” he asked.

Glóin’s eyes were filmy, but the look in them was sharp. “This is new to you,” he said. “This kind of death.”

A lifetime’s worth of fear and grief – remembered and anticipated – rose up in Legolas then, but he spoke none of it. “It is true,” he said.

“You’ll get used to it,” said Glóin, with a wheezy chuckle. “You will know it many times in a mortal’s lifetime. But this death – this frailty –” he indicated his own body with a look of disgust – “isn’t yours.”

Legolas wanted to protest, but knew not what he might say. To deny Glóin’s frailty would be to insult him with a lie, to in any way flaunt his own immortal body would be an offense to Glóin’s entire family and Legolas’s own heart. He bit his tongue and held his silence.

“You won’t die like us,” said Glóin, his wasted hand seizing Legolas’s wrist with surprising strength. “It is for you to endure, and to remember. So I ask you to be strong for them – for Geira and for Gimli. Take care of them for me.”

 _For you to endure. Be strong._ He had resolved it himself, and yet it felt so different to hear the charge from the lips of another. In spite of – indeed, _because_ of – the span of his own life, Legolas had rarely felt so powerless. But what could he do but agree?

“I will,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“Good.” Glóin’s hand relaxed on his wrist and fell back to the bed. “You are a good son-in-law. A good husband to my Gimli. It gives me comfort to know he will always have you . . .” He trailed off, as in a dream.

“And you are the best of fathers-in-law.” Legolas’s throat was choked nearly completely shut; the words came out in a strangled whisper. “I thank thee for thy warmth and welcome, for thy stalwart strength, and –” He almost laughed. “And for thy son.”

“Yes,” Glóin said. “Thou hast proven thyself worthy of him, and I am glad of it. Take care of him,” he repeated. “And I will be grateful to thee, even when I dwell in the halls of my ancestors.”

“I will,” Legolas promised again, blinking as tears began to squeeze smarting from the corners of his eyes.

“I am glad to hear it.” Glóin took a deep breath and wheezed at the effort. “I would see him now. Fare thee well, Legolas, son of Thranduil, son-in-law.”

“Fare thee well,” managed Legolas, the tears now trickling down his cheeks, “Glóin, second father of my heart. I will send your son in to you.”

The light outside of the room startled him – he had almost forgotten what it was like to see clearly. Still his sight was not clear, not with the tears that blurred his eyes. He wiped at his cheeks as Gimli and Geira turned to face him, Gimli’s face gone white with horror, Geira’s expression wooden. “He wishes to speak to you,” he managed to say to Gimli.

Gimli’s mouth opened, then closed. He nodded wordlessly and went in.

Left alone with Geira, Legolas tried desperately to compose himself. How dare he stand here, weeping like a child for Geira’s husband while she herself remained so calm and stoic? How dare he claim any part of this grief for himself?

And yet he felt small and petty and selfish, for he knew he wept not only for Glóin, not only for the loss of Gimli’s father and Geira’s husband. In the sickroom he had seen his future: himself sitting where Geira had sat, Gimli lying crumpled and shrunken in that bed. _It is for you to endure_ , Glóin had said, and already Legolas felt he could not.

He had forced back the worst of the tears by the time Gimli left the room, white-faced and hollow-eyed. He did not speak, only gestured at Geira that she should go in.

Legolas looked at Gimli, and the pain and confusion and shock in his eyes sliced through Legolas’s very heart. He reached out a hand, and Gimli took it without a word, his own hand shaking.

Neither of them spoke – any words would be too small for the magnitude of the moment, whimpers against a drawn-out silent scream. They simply waited.

Geira was in the room for long moments. The walls were thick enough, and the sounds quiet, that Legolas could not hear what was said in the room, and he was glad of it. This moment should have no witnesses, however unwitting.

At long last, the door creaked open, and Geira emerged. Her eyes were dry, her face set; she rubbed her hands together, businesslike.

“Your father has gone to the hall of his ancestors,” she said.

* * *

Though he had never been educated in them, the dwarves’ grieving practices were much as Legolas had imagined.

He had seen, after all, Gimli’s grief in Khazad-dum, for cousins and kin and later for Gandalf; had even seen dwarves grieving in Aglarond at deaths, though Legolas had not himself attended any funerals. The two had been so different, and yet he had understood, after some thought, that they were not incompatible at all.

When she had left Glóin’s chamber, Geira went directly to the front door. Legolas watched, unspeaking, as she took a large roll of black cloth that had been leaning against the wall, and in brisk, economic movements shook it open and hung it from a bar over the door to the rest of the mountain, before closing the door once more and sliding both bolts into place.

Then she turned back to where Legolas and Gimli stood watching. She did not speak to them, but made a quick hand motion in iglishmek: _Come_.

They followed her obediently, back into the sickroom, still completely silent. Gimli moved slowly, seeming in a daze; Legolas kept their fingers laced, kept as calm and quiet as he could, forcing down the hurricane of grief and fear and uncertainty that raged in his heart. This was their home, their family, their grief. His own could wait.

Glóin lay still on the bed, but even had he not known, Legolas could feel that he was dead – his spirit had flown, and the body on the bed was no more than a shell. Legolas knew not what prayers or observances Gimli and Geira might say, but in his heart, he recited a silent one of his own.

Meanwhile, Geira had gone to the corner and retrieved several candles, which she and Gimli began placing around the bed and lighting. Soon, the whole room flickered in the uneven light of many candles, illuminating Glóin’s face until it seemed nearly unearthly.

They sat there in silence for moments and then hours, Legolas and Gimli side-by-side and close, Geira on the other side of the bed, her face nearly as unreadable as Glóin’s. They did not speak, and the room was full only of the sound of their breathing, and the deafening quiet where Glóin did not.

Perhaps an hour into their vigil, Legolas began to hear the sounds of dwarves outside their door. The black cloth was surely to tell them of Glóin’s death, and perhaps because of it, they were not disturbed inside the home, even as the sounds outside changed to resemble those that Legolas had often heard upon a death in Aglarond – weeping and wailing, groans and sobs. Yet still no one disturbed them, and Legolas realized, then, how dwarves treated death.

Public grieving was loud. Private grieving was silent.

And silent it was, so silent it felt almost as though he were being pressed to the ground. Legolas was well-accustomed to quiet; he preferred it to speech, in many cases. But not today. Not when he looked across the room at Geira’s stone-still face, whose emotion he could not even guess at. Not when Gimli sat at his side, in a quiet that did not fit his usual animation. And not when Glóin lay between them on his bed, his body empty of life and spirit, while other dwarves wailed and wept outside the home.

They sat there for many hours, lost in silence and thought. Legolas could feel the warmth of Gimli at his side, but otherwise felt as though he were descending slowly into an increasing cold and numbness—the cold of death, it almost seemed, and it was all he could do not to clutch at Gimli to remind himself that his husband was still beside him.

He could feel when the morning dawned, though the sun was not visible, and it was not long after that that Geira rose. Still silent, she gestured at where Legolas and Gimli sat and made a shooing motion—no iglishmek, but entirely understandable. _Leave here_.

And still they did not speak.

All that day, they went about their business in silence. Geira shut herself in the room with Glóin’s body, and Gimli explained to Legolas in flashes of iglishmek that she was preparing it—washing and dressing him in his finest clothes, so that he would be sent to the halls of his Maker in the finery he had earned throughout his life. Meanwhile, Gimli led Legolas around the house and they gathered Glóin’s things—all his finest treasures, to be placed around his body and buried with him.

Legolas remembered the funeral of Thorin Oakenshield, so long ago—how he had been buried with his most prized treasure, and his sword laid to rest beside him, returned from Legolas’s own father in a show of respect. He wished that he had something of his own to give to Glóin, to send him away with a blessing both from the elves of Lasgalen and from the son-in-law he had never expected to welcome.

They did not eat that day, but took only water. Around the home, Legolas could still hear the weeping and wailing, the dwarves of the Lonely Mountain mourning one of their greatest—and yet Gimli and his mother, to whom he had been closest, remained dry-eyed.

And so Legolas forced down his own tears, did as Gimli indicated, and was silent.

All around him he could feel the grief in the air, the heavy coldness pressing against his heart and his limbs, and he could not stop thinking of it. For he knew that this awaited him. Would he be expected to do such, in a hundred years, or more, or less—no, not less, surely!—when Gimli lay in the bed? Would he be expected to do as Geira was doing now, and bathe and anoint and prepare his beloved’s body to be entombed deep within stone, beyond Legolas’s reach for now and for ever, until the Second Singing when they would come together again? Would he be expected to stay silent for so long, to hold his grief within his heart until it hardened into stone, unable to be expressed in speech or song? Would he be left alone and cold and empty?

The thought filled him with freezing dread—dread he did not dare to speak aloud.

Geira emerged from Glóin’s sickroom late in the afternoon, opening the door without a word to them and gesturing. She had bathed him carefully, washed and braided his hair and beard and had dressed him in clothing finer than Legolas had ever seen him wear. He was resplendent in his death, his wasted figure hardly to be seen—and yet the clothing could do nothing for the lifelessness. No glitter of the gems that she had braided into his hair, or that they piled around his body, could replace the sparkle that had left his eyes for good.

Legolas shivered, looking at him, and hoped that they would not sit vigil here again.

Indeed, that night, once they had made all the preparations that Geira directed them to complete, Gimli took Legolas by the hand and led him away—up the steps and through the door to his own private chambers. And though he kept it inside, Legolas nearly collapsed under the swell of relief that overcame him.

They readied themselves for bed, Legolas still following Gimli’s lead and speaking nothing. And when they finally retired to Gimli’s bedchamber, Gimli lay down immediately and curled up on his side.

Legolas hesitated, but settled in beside him. He did not dare reach for Gimli, not in case he wished his space, but he lay with only a finger’s width of space between them, close enough to warm away the chill of grief with the heat coming off of Gimli’s skin.

They lay still for long moments—too still. Gimli breathed shallowly, barely moving, without the usual loosening of his muscles that suggested sleep was on the way. After another moment, Legolas realized he was trembling.

He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together against the swell of sorrow and pity and affection, though it expanded inside his chest until he felt his skin must burst open with it and his heart sink down into his stomach.

Beside him, Gimli’s breathing changed. He felt it more than heard it, at first—a slight, hitching breath that jerked his shoulders back. Then another. Then, so low no mortal would have heard it, a tiny whimper.

Gimli was crying.

That was enough—Legolas stopped holding back. He turned over from where he lay on his back and draped a cautious arm over Gimli’s shoulder—and though he had been prepared to withdraw if needed, he had no chance. Gimli gave a full-body shudder, turned completely into his arms, and began to sob.

Legolas knew not if he might yet speak, but he dared to hum instead: a soft, soothing lullaby that Laerwen had often sung to him as a child. He held Gimli’s head close against his chest, stroking his wild hair and steadying his heaving back with one hand, bent forward with his lips against the top of Gimli’s head to hum close to his ear. He did not hush Gimli or whisper soothing nonsense to him, but he kept back his own tears and hummed softly, so that Gimli might know that he was held and cherished.

At last, the sobs subsided into hiccupping inhales and shaky exhales. Legolas continued to hum as Gimli recovered his composure, stopping only to press kisses against his hair and forehead and ears. Finally, after long moments, Gimli sniffled and pulled slightly back against Legolas’s grip; Legolas loosened his arms enough to let his husband wriggle free and draw his sleeve across his face.

“Thank you,” he rasped after a time.

“May we speak now?” asked Legolas carefully.

“Aye.” Gimli sniffed again, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I am sorry.”

“You ought to listen to your own words about that sentiment.” Legolas kissed Gimli’s wet cheek. “You need apologize for nothing, my love.”

“Thank you.” Gimli nestled his head against Legolas’s neck and laid a hand against the damp patch he had left on Legolas’s nightshirt. “For being here.”

“Of course,” said Legolas, although he tried to hide the cold shudders at the words. _Being here_ … that, at least, was something he would always do, even when there was no one left to endure with him. “You must know that I will always be by your side.”

“I know,” said Gimli. “And I am selfish for being glad of it, but—right now, it is good not to be alone.”

“You will never be alone, so long as I am here,” Legolas promised him. For all the pain too-well-hidden beneath Geira’s wooden face, he knew that he could never sacrifice a moment of Gimli’s life for the promise of escape from such a fate.

They fell quiet for some time, and then Legolas ventured, “You need not tell me now, if you feel you cannot speak of it, but I would know what is to come for us in the next days.”

“More company, I am afraid.” Gimli sniffed one last time, and Legolas touched a gentle fingertip to the damp corner of his eye. “It is custom—you have observed it—that the family of the deceased spends the day after the death in silence and solitude. It is meant to be a time for memory and contemplation, to allow for better healing when we may make sound once more. I understand why—I feel lighter now, as though I have lowered a weight I was forced to carry all day.” His mouth twisted unhappily. “I only hope my mother has found the same release, now that she need not hold her silence. But—”

He did not finish, but Legolas completed the sentence in his mind. _But she has no one to hold her_. Geira had always seemed the more practical of Gimli’s parents, and Glóin more given to displays of emotion. Without him, would Gimli’s mother be able to find her way into feeling?

Legolas said nothing of his thoughts—not yet—and after a time Gimli continued. “Tomorrow we will open our home to relatives and friends who will come to view the – the body,” he swallowed, and Legolas tightened his embrace for a moment, “and bring any gifts they wish Adad to take with him into the stone. They will bring gifts for us, as well—it is tradition that we must prepare the food for the funeral ourselves, but they will bring meals for us to eat, so we need not look after our own well-being. And we will talk much – will share our memories of my father’s life.”

“Will you weep and tear your beard as well?” asked Legolas. He recalled it happening at the other funerals that he had witnessed, and he had certainly heard it in the halls, but he had not seen Gimli do so in Lothlórien.

Gimli gave a slightly watery laugh. “No, that is only done ceremonially,” he said. “We, as the family, will be expected to look our best for the funeral, in respect for the deceased, and to show that we carry on well with his memory beside us. The loud grieving is for… for distant friends and kin, or admirers. Those who…” He hesitated, as though thinking.

“Those who knew him for what he was, not who he was,” said Legolas softly, managing not to wince at the word _was_. Thus he had seen Gimli grieve his kin in Khazad-dum: in silence at first, and then in tales told to Legolas – personal tales, memories of the people he grieved. He had respected and mourned the failure of his people’s endeavors, but those he _missed_ , he remembered for their lives, and the ways they had touched his.

“Yes.” Gimli swallowed thickly, and Legolas rubbed gently at the nape of his neck. “I am glad to count you among the latter. In days past, some who knew of your coming had complained that an elf would be witnessing our most intimate funeral rites – but you are more his family than most of them.”

“I am honored to be counted as such,” said Legolas softly, his throat thickening again with tears he swallowed back. “And to have had the opportunity to know your father as family. He” – He hesitated, but not for long. “He was a great heart, Gimli, a fierce, proud spirit, and rightly so. I should have loved him however he was, for he was your father, but he made me glad to call him family.”

Gimli’s eyes grew shiny and wet again, and Legolas worked a hand back into his hair, stroking circles over his scalp. “I am glad to hear it,” the dwarf murmured. “And I am glad that he came to feel the same, in his turn.”

“And he was proud in that, as well.” Legolas smiled now in memory, and for a wonder, it came easily. Gimli had said he felt lighter, that now was the time for remembering—well, Legolas had the clear memory of any elf. Let him put it now to use in making Gimli smile. “Do you remember after our wedding, when the harpist refused to play for the dancing – how he shouted at him for all the hall to hear?”

Gimli started beside him, then laughed aloud—weak, but clear. “Of course I do,” he said, grinning. “I thought he would break the harp over Aster’s stubborn head!”

“Indeed, I think he would have, had the rest of the musicians not persuaded him quickly to reconsider!”

They talked thus long into the night, laughing and weeping and sharing memories of Glóin. Gimli finally drifted off to sleep, and although Legolas stayed wakeful to watch over his rest, he saw no sign of troubled dreams.

* * *

Legolas drifted that night instead of dreaming; sleep had become less restful for him since he had heard the gulls, and it was always worse when waking worries plagued at his mind. He had found that there was a state he could enter, a hazy space in between wakefulness and dream, without the sharpness of either, where he could escape at least for a time from thought. It was not as restful as deep dream, but it was better when his other choices were the incessant uncontrollable dreams of the sea, or the endless needle-sharp waking thoughts of death.

He waited until Gimli had sunk deeply enough into sleep that his faint snores had evened out into steady breaths, and he woke long before the dwarf as well, distracting himself from his own thoughts by listening to Gimli’s breathing, watching the rise and fall of his chest and the stir of curls in his breath until he woke at last.

They were quiet that morning as they washed and dressed, but it was not the same kind of stone quiet that had held them all the day before. Legolas felt he could breathe again at last in the space – indeed, for those short moments, he felt mortal, felt as he imagined Gimli must be feeling. He had been swept up, the night before, in the relief after long solemnity, in the recognition of remembering life, of knowing that death was merely a part of it. And for the first time in days, he was not frightened.

Until they left Gimli’s chambers.

It was as though all the lightness and air that they had managed to reclaim was sucked away; it was all he could do to keep from staggering, as though struck in the stomach. Gimli’s only reaction was a slumping of his shoulders, but Legolas could see he felt it, too – whether it was the reminder of responsibility sinking back onto him, or whether he too felt assaulted by the heavy, suffocating grief in the air.

Legolas laid a hand on the back of Gimli’s neck, half to ease Gimli’s tension; half to hold himself up. He knew without asking, without being told, that Geira had found none of the release that they had shared the night before.

At the top of the stairs, Gimli took a long breath and let it out slowly, his shoulders straightening and squaring: preparing for the moment to come. Then he slid an arm around Legolas’s waist and escorted him downstairs.

Geira was in the kitchen already when they arrived, sleeves pushed up to her elbows, steel-grey hair and beard braided tightly away from her face. Though she looked older every time Legolas saw her, still her arms were corded with heavy muscle from work in the smithy and her eyes were fierce enough that Legolas dared not speak to her, though her grief hung heavy throughout the house. He did not know what might be said, anyway – what words might be able to bridge such an all-encompassing loss – and again he felt that very chasm lurking, waiting to swallow him whole, one day too few years hence –

“Good,” Geira said gruffly when she saw them. “You have come.”

“Aye,” said Gimli. “What needs doing?”

Legolas nodded along as quickly as Gimli spoke, hoping that at least his eagerness to assist might help ease the burden of her responsibility. “Yes, put us to work.”

She looked them over for a moment. “Gimli, you may open the doors and greet the guests in the parlor.” It was plain to be seen, surely, that he was the best equipped for the task. “Legolas, you stay and help me.”

She was baking: rolling dough flat, slicing it into strips, and twisting it into knot-like shapes. He listened quietly as she explained tersely what he was to do, nodding meekly along with her instructions. Even after fifteen years, the slightest sign of disapproval from Gimli’s parents was enough to send him fleeing back into the safety of silence, and even knowing the reason for her mood now was not enough to calm the part of him that cringed away from the brusqueness of her tone. He wondered if he would ever overcome that – the longing to impress, to appease, Gimli’s parents –

Gimli’s parent. Geira alone, now, for Glóin was no longer here to approve.

He did not think he betrayed the upset confusion of his thoughts with any outward motion, but he merely took the place Geira directed and began to follow her instructions.

The work, he found, was soothing: repetitive motion that required just enough thought to take the edge off of his fretting, at least for the moment, but was mindless enough that he could still think. It seemed Geira felt something similar; though she said nothing to him, still locked in the stone wall of her own grief, they fell easily into a shared rhythm. He dared not speak to her, for he knew not if it was his place to speak of that which pained her – for all it was so near to his own – but he thought they both found some ease in the quiet repetition of the work: Geira kneading the dough smooth with gnarled but powerful hands and then passing it to him to slice and twist into shape. She shoveled tray after tray into the oven, the kitchen growing warm from the stove and their exertion, and pulled the trays out barehanded, the heat affecting her skin not at all.

Legolas knew not how much of the conversation outside the kitchen Geira was able to hear: Gimli’s low voice greeting guests in Khuzdul, accepting their murmurs of sympathy, passing banal conversation about Glóin’s great spirit and many accomplishments. But it was the same conversation over and over again, nothing new.

Death itself was not new to Legolas; he had seen enough companions fall in battle, but there was something reassuring about learning that mortals did not seem to know any better than elves what to say to companions who had lost a loved one. There was one phrase that was new to him, though, repeated again and again: _he lived a full life_. As though it made his death somehow less senseless, more worthwhile, that it had come on naturally rather than being forced on him in battle.

Legolas wondered if it rang as falsely to Gimli’s ears as it did to his own.

When at last he and Geira ventured forth from the kitchen, it seemed the flow of guests had lessened. Most had departed; a few had gone to the room where Glóin lay, there to leave their offerings and to pay their respects; and even fewer lingered yet in the greeting chamber where Gimli sat.

Ain and Nali were two of those, Legolas noticed, and he felt the tension between them and Gimli just as he had felt it some days before: the clash of genuine sentiment with the traces of resentment that still lingered between all three of them, grating against one another like two out-of-tune instruments and filling the air with the awkward sensation that prickled at the spine, as though indeed the false notes could be heard.

Gimli’s face was tense: outwardly polite, but Legolas could see him itching for the rest to leave, longing to usher them out the door and close it behind them. It was too much to ask of someone whose father had just died, he thought, and he wished suddenly that he had been out here to aid Gimli, though he knew he would have been more a hindrance than a help.

He went to his husband, coming up behind the couch where he sat and resting his hands on the taut muscles of Gimli’s shoulders. Gimli relaxed instantly at his touch and turned around, the tightness in his face easing when he looked up.

“Your preparations are finished?” he asked.

“Not quite.” Legolas bent, not caring if it were improper, to tuck a kiss into Gimli’s hair, even as his hands probed at Gimli’s shoulders. “But we have gone far enough for the day; we will resume tomorrow. For now I wished to see how you were faring.”

“As well as can be expected, I imagine,” sighed Gimli. But his eyes darted around the room as though he wished everyone to depart, and Legolas could not blame him.

Slowly, too slowly, the other guests trickled out of the adjoining chambers and – seeming to notice that their welcome was wearing thin – slipped away with murmured farewells. Only Ain and Nali remained, hanging in the corner as though uncertain, and Legolas could feel the tension of their presence in the set of Gimli’s shoulders beneath his hands.

At last, when it was only the four of them left in the room, Ain stepped forward. “Gimli,” he began.

The twitch in Gimli’s shoulders was not a flinch so much as the aborted beginnings of one, as though he dared not even allow himself to show his discomfort at the thought of speaking to them – and abruptly, it was too much.

“Later.” Legolas’s own voice surprised even himself, but he settled more firmly behind Gimli, keeping his hands on Gimli’s back. Let him appear a protector; he cared not.

Nali raised an eyebrow. “We only wished” –

“Not now,” Legolas said, emboldened by the way Gimli leaned into him at his words. “It has been a long day; whatever you have to say can wait another.”

Ain and Nali exchanged a speaking glance of the sort that – Legolas knew – Gimli would once have shared with them. At last, Ain nodded. “You are right, Master Legolas,” he said. “Forgive us, then, Gimli, and we will speak with you when you are able.”

“Thank you,” Gimli rasped, and did not rise when they shuffled out. And once the door had closed behind them, he tilted his head up to Legolas and repeated the words, with tears forming once more in his eyes.

Legolas held him and said nothing.

* * *

Gimli curled tightly into Legolas’s arms that night again, but he did not weep this time. Perhaps all his tears had been spent, or he was merely too tired to allow them to flow again. Legolas held him, toyed with his hair, and listened to his breathing slow, but it did not yet settle into the steady patterns of sleep.

“Thank you for putting them off,” Gimli mumbled at last, his voice muffled in his beard and Legolas’s nightshirt.

“I am glad it was what you wished,” Legolas said. Something in him released at the words, a tension he had not allowed himself to feel, a worry he had held in check – that he had acted out of place, that Gimli had resented his intrusion. “It seemed you were too worn for conversation.”

“I was.” Gimli sighed. “I know their words would not have been empty, not like the others’, but” –

“But hearing them would have taxed you too sorely?”

“Exactly.”

Gimli lapsed into silence, and Legolas closed his eyes in renewed sympathy for Gimli’s pain. Not only losing his father, but in that he could not grieve uncomplicatedly with those who had once been his closest friends. Ain and Nali were doubtless some of the few who had known Glóin for who he was – more, they were some of the few who had known him as Gimli’s father, and could share with Gimli the memories of who and how he had been. But after what had passed between them, with the ease of their friendship stretched to straining, they could not give Gimli the comfort they would once have given, no matter how much they wished to.

Though it was not _his_ loss, not yet, it all made Legolas feel suddenly, achingly lonely, and he held Gimli closer.

* * *

The next day, Gimli declared that he had an errand to perform – and the grim set of his shoulders and flash of his eyes told Legolas exactly what it was. It was on Legolas’s tongue to offer to accompany him, but – but no, this was something Gimli had best do alone.

He volunteered instead to assist Geira in the kitchen again, and she accepted him so readily that he wondered if perhaps he were not the only one who had felt the strange ease of their silent labor the day before. But today they had worked only for a few moments in silence before Geira broke it.

“You wished to speak with me.”

Legolas swallowed. She was right and wrong at the same time; he wished to speak and yet could not bear to breach the subject. But he would not explain that conflict to her. “I suppose so,” was all he dared to say aloud.

“I can guess why.” The muscles in Geira’s arms flexed as she pounded a mound of dough flat and carved it into circles. As she passed each to him, Legolas piled the center with strips of spiced meat, then folded the edges around and pinched them shut as she had taught him. “But you know I have never cared for elvish evasion. I would have you ask me outright, if there is aught you would know.”

It was a demand Geira had always made of him, one he had always done his best to respect – but how was he to speak now of what troubled him, when he could hardly understand it himself? “I do not ask because I do not know how,” he said at last.

“You would know how to grieve.” As always, she made no effort to spare his feelings, slapping flour around the next ball of dough with motions as brisk and efficient as her words. “When you are in my place.”

“I would.” The cold meat oozed between his fingers; he fought back a sudden wave of nausea and dropped it into the next pie with a shudder. “But I do not ask you to teach me.”

“It is not something that can be taught, anyway.” She remained silent for a long time, and Legolas continued molding the meat pies. “And it will not be the same for you. I have only so many years left to me, anyway; it will not be long before I join my husband in the halls of our ancestors.” She turned a brief glance on him, her face still set and her eyes hard. “There is no such consolation for you.”

It was no more than he might have expected – but all he could think to say in that moment was, “That does not lessen the truth of your suffering now.”

Geira passed Legolas the last carved circle of dough, and rolled together the remaining scraps into one last small ball. “Perhaps not,” she said, tearing the ball in half and putting one piece into her mouth. Once Legolas had finished the last pie, she offered him the other half, as if in succor.

It was cold comfort, but he took it anyway.

* * *

Gimli returned late that evening with swollen eyes and two soft packages wrapped in brown paper. He passed the first to Geira, who took it without speaking, and beckoned Legolas to follow him to his own apartments.

“What are they?” asked Legolas, once they were safely in Gimli’s bedchambers.

“Our clothes for the funeral,” said Gimli shortly. “Yours will be ready on the morrow, but the tailor could not make the adjustments for your measurements in time for me to bring them back today.” He untied the package and put the folded pile of fabric on the chest of drawers, at the ready.

“That was not your only errand today,” Legolas said, unsure how else to breach the subject.

“No.” Gimli climbed onto the bed and beckoned Legolas to join him. “You know what else I had to do.”

Legolas perched beside Gimli on the bed and waited.

“We did not speak of recent hurts,” Gimli said, “only of old memories, and – I think that was for the best.” He leaned against Legolas and let out a long sigh. “I would not lose old friends over pride if I can avoid it, even if we are all different from what we once were. And grief shared is easier to bear, I think.”

Legolas slipped his arm around Gimli’s shoulders and pulled him close. “That is a comfort to hear, at least.”

But for all that he meant it, he could not help hearing Geira’s words in his mind again: _no such consolation for you_. And he could not help holding Gimli tighter than usual when they at last lay down to rest that night.

Gimli made no comment.

* * *

The funeral was held two days later, in the same grand hall where Legolas and Gimli had been wed. Legolas reeled when they entered, thrown off balance by the powerful clash between present grief and remembered joy that nearly knocked him off his feet – but Gimli was looking around with a sad smile on his face.

“It is good, I suppose,” he said when Legolas looked at him in question, “to remember beginnings as well as endings.”

Beginnings and endings. That was the cycle of a mortal life, in the way Legolas was coming to understand it – but not for him, not for the life he knew. Glóin’s words echoed in his head again, as they had done so often in these last few days: _it is for you to endure_.

And what other choice did he have?

Glóin’s body lay on a stone bier at the front of the hall, surrounded by the treasures Geira had assembled and those that their guests had brought – works of art he had created himself or been gifted in moments of great significance: representation of all that he had done and given throughout his life. Long tables flanked the body, laden with the food that Geira and Legolas had cooked over the last few days. The funeral would be followed by a grand celebration of Glóin’s life sponsored by the king himself (in honor of Glóin’s status within the mountain), but for this portion, guests might pay their respects to Gloin while eating food that his family had prepared themselves, the last they would make for him now that he had returned to the care of his Maker.

Legolas held Gimli’s hand as they took their place in the seats closest to the body. He found he could not bear to look at Glóin’s lifeless form, so he gazed on his husband instead. Gimli looked solemn and dignified in his funeral wear: black with silver trimming. He had braided all his hair back, in addition to the few braids he always wore that symbolized their marriage, but he still wore the wooden beads Legolas had carved for him fifteen years before.

Geira’s family sat beside them; her sister and her brother’s children had come to visit from the Iron Hills the day before, and Legolas was grateful that she would not be alone when they departed. But there were still two empty seats on Legolas’s other side – and he started as Ain and Nali took their places, both reaching over to touch Gimli lightly on the shoulder as they settled in.

Legolas nodded at them cordially, keeping Gimli’s hand clasped closely in his, but Ain surprised him, reaching over to grasp his shoulder as well in a firm, friendly grip – a gesture he had not made in several years. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Legolas did not ask for what. He merely inclined his head once more, and then they turned to face where the king had taken his place on the dais.

* * *

Legolas took in the funeral in silence.

It was not the first funeral he had attended, but they had yet been few enough that each one struck him hard – and in truth he wondered if it would ever grow easier. This was not the way elves grieved: the solemn ceremony, the speeches, the traditions. For elves, grief was a matter both private and public at the same time. Elves might mourn for hours or days or years: weeping until they could sing; singing until the sharpness of the grief had dulled and their feeling no longer needed to bleed free in song. And for those who could neither weep nor sing – well, those elves were rarely long for this world, whether they sailed or faded or simply laid themselves down, never to rise again.

But that was, Legolas realized, a different type of end. For elves could not be assured a reunion with their lost loved ones unless they chose it themselves.

It was the difference between mortal and immortal life, and he had long known it, but it was different somehow, seeing it here. Seeing the way that the dwarves honored a life well lived – and that phrase arose again and again, _a life well lived_ – and remembered Glóin for who he had been and all he had done. And they did this so that the bitterness would fade from their grief, because – because it could. Because it would.

Because this parting was not forever.

All the speeches, all the songs, spoke of the halls of Mahal, the care of their maker and the splendor of his home, where all dwarves could be assured a place. Where everyone here would be assured to return, be that in ten years or one hundred or two. Where they would see Glóin again, and one another.

Legolas sat through the solemn funeral, and through the grand feast that followed, and he tried not to cling to Gimli’s hand.

* * *

“Are you sure you wish to go just yet?”

Their bags were already packed, their farewells said, but still Legolas did not put it past Gimli to wish to leave for his comfort alone. Did he not wish to grieve longer with his mother, or to spend more time with his old friends, continuing their efforts to repair the rift that had grown between them?

But Gimli shook his head. “No; we have been here long enough. My duties as a son are fulfilled; I think Amad would rather spend her time alone, and” – He hesitated. “And there is nothing else here for me,” he confessed, in a low voice. “Strange as it is to say so, I want – to go home.”

He looked up at Legolas, uncertain as he never seemed in his speech, in his convictions – as though seeking permission. As though it were for Legolas to allow him this desire.

And if that was what he sought, Legolas would oblige him.

“Then we will go home, my love,” he said, and tucked a kiss against the crown of Gimli’s head.

They would walk to Dale; it would only be one night of camping, and there they would reclaim the horse Legolas had stabled. It was peaceful to walk in slow silence, out in the open air at the base of the mountain, the only sound the heavy, decisive trudge of Gimli’s boots on the rocky ground, their fingers interlaced, their thoughts drifting.

After some time, without looking up from the clouds of dust stirred by his boots, Gimli spoke. “Thank you,” he said, low and rough.

“For what?” Had he sounded too brusque? He was merely surprised – what had he done that warranted thanks?

“For being here with me,” Gimli said. “Through all of it.”

Legolas nearly laughed – except that the mirth was sucked out of his chest as quickly as it had come on. “Of course,” he said, stroking his thumb over Gimli’s knuckles. “I will” – He swallowed hard. “I will always be by your side.”

Gimli looked up at last, and a great void opened up in the air between where their gazes met. _But you will not always be here with me._

The thought passed between them, and Legolas did not need to ask to know that Gimli had felt it as well – in the flash-then-lower of his eyelids, in the sudden painful pressure of his hand against Legolas’s. He did not need to ask to know that Gimli had caught on at last to the knowledge that had ever been present in Legolas’s soul, the stone at the bottom of his heart.

Gimli said nothing – for what could be said, in the face of such a truth? He merely closed his eyes and brought Legolas’s hand to his lips – the whiskery brush of a kiss slow as a lingering eternity, but unable to promise even a fraction of that length.

And then he turned again to look ahead, and they continued on in silence, away from the mountain.


End file.
